Teachers Drink

We do, we drink. Special Ed teachers drink most heavily, their doctors write prescriptions for it. But all teachers drink and this surprises a lot of people. People who have never taught, anyway. I didn't know this until I student-taught and felt somewhat perverse as I headed out with the teachers to the bar across the street for this lesson. The men spoke of girls who's shirts were too low and skirts too high. The women wanted to know the teacher related gossip from where I attended high school. I thought to myself back then, "I cannot wait to get to the clubs this weekend so I can drink and dance away the memory of these teachers drinking their week away."

We drink most, I've found, after parent teacher - conferences and the last day before Winter Break. At my first job I drank most frequently with the young teachers, like myself, and out of assorted glasses we took from the cupboards of our funky low-rent apartments. We gathered together two or three times a week to impress each other with the way we imitated our students and with how much we could drink and still look perky the next day.

At my next job, where I still teach, I met another group of young teachers to go out and drink with. We didn't get together as often, only on Fridays, and it was usually at the same smoke-filled, narrow and dark neighborhood bar. We payed the jukebox to play the same songs and eventually a few of us would be drunk enough to leave the pool table and dance. A lot of those teachers smoked, so to fit in, I began smoking also. I dated a guy that smoked and one day after hacking up some really thick uncomfortable phlegm I asked him, "do you think I'm coughing so much because I'm smoking now?" He wrinkled his brow and looked at me like I was the idiot art teacher I am and shook his head, "no." The question didn't even deserve an audible reply. I chose to believe him for a little while; he was an English teacher and had a really impressive vocabulary so he had to be smart. This new group of teachers were fun but not as much fun as the group from my first job. These teachers liked to impress each other with stories of how wonderful they all were at teaching.

After marrying and quitting smoking I'd attend only the Winter Break party and if I wanted to drink with teachers, I'd invite a couple to my house. I thought I'd outgrown attending bars and drinking with fellow teachers until last week when a couple invited me to join them on St. Patty's Day. It was a Monday, I thought, "if anything can bring me back to my first years of teaching, drinking on a Monday night will." So I went.

I was NOT disappointed. We weren't there to stroke each other and tell one another what great educators we were. Instead, there were funny stories of students finding dried slices of ham hidden between the pages of Science textbooks, falling down the steps to get parents to give you a Popsicle, dogs peeing in the bed, and the principal turning on his pocket flashlight in the darkroom so that he could see. Ah, new stories from a fresh new group of young teachers. These kids were funny! I became the "wise experienced one." I tried to explain divorce in a marriage that had not lost it's love to a kid who'd been recently dumped. I remember being in his shoes at just about the same age, seeking answers from the older teachers whose opinion I valued. I hope I had something wise to tell him, but I don't think he'd remember it. He had three beers for every one that I had.

Before paying for a coffee this morning, I opened my wallet to find the little paper model of Matt that Juan made to recreate the act of falling down the stairs for a Popsicle.

Wake Up Call...or Hit

I left for work without my cell phone, I knew I had left it in its charger when I pulled out of my garage but didn't feel like going back in the house to get it. It was 5:30 and I was still wearing my pajamas because it is Wednesday. On Wednesdays my morning workout is a swim so I just grab my suit and a bag packed with work clothes and go. I throw a long coat over my PJ's in case I run into a maintenance man on my way to the locker room.

It was 5:45 and still dark, I had just crossed Roosevelt Road on Central Avenue, going South, when a very small man walked into the street, without looking before he crossed, and I hit him. "What do you mean, 'hit him'?" Asked Alex, my student. "I mean, I was in my car while it was moving and he stepped in front of my car before I could stop it from moving."
"I can't tell if she's kidding" says Sam.
"She's not kidding." says Cheryl.

I swerved but still hit him with my front passenger side bumper/fender/door. I pulled over right away and saw that he lay in clump in the street. "Oh MY GOD!" I thought, "Oh my God, please let him be okay." I turned on my hazard lights, jumped out of the car and ran to where he lay, unmoving. I yelled at cars, "Please someone call 911!" Cars kept driving by, one didn't even slow down as it passed me hunched over the man in the street. I don't think they saw us,it was still dark, did i say that?
On that corner is a diner, I ran into the diner and asked them to call 911. One of the waitresses followed me out, "We called the police they're on their way," she told me.
I said, "he just walked out in the street, he just walked right out."
The little man sat up and looked at me. "Oh no, please stay still. An ambulance is coming to check you out. Stay here." He said nothing, just got up and tried to walk away. "No, no, no, you have to wait here."

He was about 60 years old, very wrinkled weathered face, wore a Carhart jacket, jeans and a white baseball cap, which was still in the street. He bent over to pick up his lunch box. "Voy trabajar," he said. The waitress and I made him stay...on the sidewalk, out of the street. She told me to grab his baseball cap so I did and handed it to him. He still was trying to leave and I was having a hard time remembering any Spanish at all. "Esperate," I told him.

Very soon a cop car pulled up, then another and another and then an ambulance. There were two officers, who spoke Spanish, talking to the man. He refused to go to the hospital. One officer told me to calm down, I was crying a little, the man was fine he wasn't hurt. Another officer took my license and insurance information and wrote a report. Soon the waitress left and all but two officers left, one spoke with the little man and the other was finishing the report. My Spanish is bad, all I could figure out from the conversation taking place between the little man and the officer was that he had no identification and no phone. He did not know how old he was but he was born in 1945. He denied that he was even hit by a car, he said he was walking and he fell. Maybe he really believes that. He had his hood up over his head and was not looking to see if a car was coming, he probably doesn't even know how he wound up on the ground. He asked the officer for directions to Minuteman where he was going to work. The Spanish speaking officer leaned inside the report taking officer's car and asked if he knew where there was a Minuteman. It was only me and the little man on the sidewalk. He looked at me and asked me something, but he spoke so quietly and with a very heavy accent. I had to say, "lo siento, no hablo Espanol." He fingered the torn strap on his lunch box with laborer's hands; very large for his frame, grand knuckles and dark nails.

He walked toward the the Spanish speaking officer and again said, "voy trabajar." The Spanish speaking officer gave him directions and helped him cross the street, because he wasn't looking again...just crossing with his head down watching his feet.

I cannot believe I actually hit a man today. My side mirror hangs by wires and there are dents in front passenger side bumper/fender/door to remind me that it really did happen.

Critique a Balls Still Life

Each year I fall in love with a different group of students. I grow close to them by learning about them and why they create the art they make. I meet their family members and friends and watch them endure the drama of teenage life. This year I have three boys that check in with me each morning and again before they leave. They stand in front of my desk cracking jokes and giving me updates on the progression of their portfolios, social life, and school work. They are Hamsel, Michael and Alex.
They are all three very handsome and very funny and very creative in very different ways. Hamsel is animated when he tells a story and is usually the loudest voice in the room, but that's not why he always has the most attention. The kid has a really creative sense of humor and busts on people constantly but with a sensitivity that is in no way mean. Michael laughs along with him mostly, adding an occasional quiet comment that strengthens the jokes Hamsel creates. Alex is the articulate and intelligent jokester, you have to think about what he says before you laugh. They are constantly reciting lines from movies together as though they were the actors in the film. Without going to a theater I have seen trailers for "Superbad," "Knocked Up," and most recently "Semi Pro."
Hamsel and Michael are both in my AP Studio Art Class, they are with the best of the best. We hold bi-weekly critiques to help each other build strong portfolios to submit to College Board for college credit. At this time of the year we are working on our Concentration section; the students create twelve pieces that develop from one theme. During critique Hamsel and Michael are incredibly helpful to their peers as they offer up insightful suggestions and creative solutions that the others take seriously to heart.
A boy I call Vargas decided to do his Concentration on Sports related still life drawings.
This past week Vargas hung his very simple drawing of a football, a basketball and a baseball on the wall and fell victim to the creative humor of Hamsel and Michael. I began the comments by saying, "It's well drawn but is missing the contrast and value changes that make your work impressive. The balls themselves have no value changes in them yet there are very strong cast shadows under them."
Hamsel added, "Yea man, yea. The balls all have the same value." Just a snicker now but that's all he needed to fuel the fire.
"So what about dark balls vs. white balls? What if the balls are touching? And texture, you can't tell if the balls are rough or smooth. Maybe draw some balls bouncing." The laughter is loud and then settles so someone can add a real helpful hint, "hey, like...why don't you draw what a soccer ball looks like when it's being kicked. Like, it turns into an elliptical shape and foreshorten it so it looks like it's exploding off the page!"
Hamsel adds, "yea, EXPLODING BALLS!"
Michael chimes in, "Raining balls man, jus' all kindsa balls fallin' from the sky." Laughter is good, we need laughter so I do little to stop it but I do try, "you can make your Concentration turn toward something more like impact in sports. Make it more about Impact than, you know..."
Michael says quietly, "softballs."